On Tuesday, March 26, 2024, Sophie Capobianco, graduate student in the Theater and Performance Studies Master’s Program, presented their poster "Live Stillness: Dichotomies of Indigenous Performance in James Luna’s Artifact Piece” at the 29th Annual Graduate Research Symposium.
We are proud to announce that Sophie’s research was awarded 2nd place in the Professional Studies Division. Their research presentation examined James Luna’s 1987 performance of Artifact Piece as a challenge to dominant representations of Indigenous culture in museums and the reduction of Indigenous personhood to artifact. Sophie argues that Luna’s performance subverts expectations of authentic cultural representation and Indigeneity through the display of his body among objectified artifacts. Luna’s live performance effectively disrupts the structuring white gaze that guides curatorial practices around cultural representations of Otherness and presents new considerations for audiences in their consumption of “authentic” Indigenous culture.
Congratulations to Sophie!
Click here for more information on the 29th Annual Graduate Research Symposium.
